"If you want to be happy, be!" That's writer Leo Tolstoy's simple message on happiness, an emotion that has eluded any lasting definition about its exact state of being.
In other words, happiness is not an exotic fruit that you need to seek out and pluck from a faraway tree. It is a feeling, a sensation that is home-grown, something akin to short and snappy star bursts within you. All you need to do is cut back the stress, slow down and seek it out. For aeons, one of the most important emotions of human life has been the subject of study for philosophers and gurus from all civilisations and cultures around the world. If the answer has been difficult to define, it is because like Robin Sharma's monk who sold his Ferrari, we need to shed all the bling to be able to grasp it.
We knew it all along. Now a study carried out by the University of Chicago goes on to make another startling find. Social psychologist and study author Yang Yang from the University of Chicago concludes in her research that happiness comes with age and old age is the happiest time of our lives.
Maturity and happiness are linked
Her study links happiness to a state of contentment. Yang's findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans in a period ranging from 1972 to 2004. She interviewed people in the 18 to 88 age group and published her findings in a paper entitled "Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States, 1972-2004: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis," published in the April 2009 issue of the American Sociological Review, the official journal of the American Sociological Association.
Her study establishes a direct link between maturity and happiness. When we are younger we have expectations and desires that keep us on the roll. However, as we grow older we somehow come to terms with who we are and our expectations from life. There are pains and bereavements but also the coming to terms with the job you did and delivered in life and not some ghost desire of being someone biggeror greater.
So what in reality, is the definition of true happiness? Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey (GSS) at the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago who also worked on this study, says in an email interview with Friday that this emotion means different things to different people. "We did not define "happiness" (in our survey). We merely asked in the survey how "happy" people consider their own lives, marriages, and so on."
Our happiness, in simple terms, has got to do with our own targets and high expectations we set in life. When we are younger, we experience peer pressure and feel obliged to conform to the expectations of our friends, family and parents. When we graduate from college and start working, we are under pressure again to meet the right partner and settle into marriage, keep up with the Joneses, acquire all that is required to become a successful corporate executive, get the kids to perform well through school and college. When we hit middle age, we are still trying to settle our loans and cobble together a decent standard of living.
By the time we turn 60, the birds have flown the coop, our liabilities and expenses are done with and we are left with a greying, mellowed partner who is desperately waving a white flag for peace. We lay down our arms, consolidate our savings, come to terms with the fact that the missus is no Greta Garbo and she in turn accepts that her man with his extended paunch is no Superman.
In other words, the study points out, happiness peaks when we are 75! It might be a little incredulous but that is what participants in the study proved. We actually feel happy when we are greying, balding, toothless and have given all our ambitions a full gamut spin and are now content with whatever figure flashes on the score board of our lives.
The study provides an insight into the reasons for this. Smith points out: "One of the key causes of unhappiness is simply having more objective problems. With the notable exception of health issues, younger adults on average have more of all types of problems - job-related, financial, interpersonal and crime." He points out that the study sets a direct correlation with maturity. As we age we are better integrated as people and have a more cohesive self-esteem. "On average older adults are happier. First, they have fewer objective problems. Second, with experience and maturity they have learnt better how to handle the problems that do arise."
Smith believes that one of the most important keys to happiness is the bond we share in society with others. "The single most important thing is to establish strong personal ties with others. They will provide social and psychological support in times of need and stress and by caring for others you will improve your own well-being." Friday spoke to five people of different age groups to understand how happiness worked its way around the issues of age and expectation.
Drumming your way to happiness
Julie Ann Odell, proprietor of the Dubai Drums initiative, has been in the business of getting people to reduce stress and drum their way to happiness. Her collective drumming classes are a key to defining her own happy state of mind. She recalls her own evolution to happiness: "To me happiness is being happy in the true sense of the word; in all the myriad forms that it comes in - so many things bring me happiness.
"If you had met me ten years ago before I started Dubai Drums and asked me about drumming I would have been clueless... I'd never touched a drum in my life. I was going to host the Middle East's first mind-body-spirit festival nine years ago and through that saw community drum circles at many other holistic festivals around the world. So I thought that it would be amazing to have one here.
"I booked a man from Canada to come to Dubai and perform but four months before the show the sole sponsor pulled out. When I got the news, my first reaction was "Oh no, I won't have the drumming" and that's when I realised it was very important to me, so I set off to become an African drummer and haven't looked back since.
"There is a double-blind placebo study by Dr Barry Bittman that proves that when people drum together it boosts their immune system, raises the endorphins in the bloodstream and de-stresses because of the whole brain experience and the balancing of left and right brain, that is logic and emotion. Plus, think about it - drumming together as a tribe is in everyone's DNA somewhere or the other. In some cultures you have to go back quite a few thousand years, in other cultures it's still very much a part of life.
"Basically people want to belong to a tribe and do things collaboratively; after all, you can achieve far more together than you ever can alone and so that collaborative feeling in a rhythmic environment taps into one's creativity and builds strong community bonds."
All our lives we pursue things - how to eat the best food, plan our holiday, look for family time... because we want to be happy. But happiness dwells more within our own parameters of success and self-esteem that we draw out for the fulfilment of personal goals. Says Odell: "I believe that self-esteem is a huge part of happiness. If you don't have self-worth, you are usually in victim mode and it's hard to find happiness there."
Odell who is 53 now often finds herself in a high state of happiness. Assessing her emotion on a scale of 1-10 with ten being deliriously happy, she says: "Quite often I reach a 10, most times I'm living around 7-8.5 so I feel pretty blessed. After all if we lived in 10 all the time, life would become boring. You need the thunder and lightning sometimes to truly feel the joy and pleasure of sunshine," she remarks reflectively.
‘I am definitely happier now'
She also agrees with the basic premise of the study that happiness is linked to maturity and as we age, we become happier. Looking back on her various stages of life - childhood, teenage years, becoming a young mother and an achiever - she says: "My level of happiness now is not comparable with back then. I am definitely happier now than I ever was. Thank goodness.
"I have a loving husband and our relationship enhances my life. Our son is married and doing well, running the business for me in Egypt, and I have an adorable grandson, my gorgeous "soul-mate" daughter is just about to enter university to study English literature which she loves and she wants to be an author. I have a successful, exciting business, we travel to all kinds of exotic destinations, I work as a team coach and get to spread my wisdom and help to empower people and as a drum circle facilitator have the joy of spreading "unity through rhythm. I am running pretty hot on the happiness thermometer."
She does not agree that older people are happier people. "It's all got to do with how you view life. I have met some really sad, grumpy old people and I believe that happens because they have accumulated so much pain during their life which they have not worked on or released. However, if you have awareness and work on maintaining it, then of course the older you become the more awareness you have and with that more wisdom and of course with that more ability to live in the moment and enjoy whatever life sends your way.
"I also have another theory, which is that the more pain... and sadness you deal with early on in life and realise that it was meant to teach you a lesson, the more brownie points you accumulate in the game of life and this ultimately increases your happiness quota. One of my favourite philosophical pieces is a poem titled If by Rudyard Kipling and the line I love the most reads: ‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same...' After all, we are the ones who put "labels" of good and bad on everything. They merely "just are" and need to be dealt with as "learnings" and "gifts" and that way anyone can have the happiness elixir."
‘You don't have to wait till 75 to be happy'
Young and on the threshold of a new horizon, Canadian national Faris Al Ghussen is all of 19 years and walking the tightrope all young men do. He is working towards getting good grades at college that will launch him into a brilliant career. Like most young men in the cusp year of adulthood, Al Ghussen is happy to be young and anticipates a lot of excitement in his life. However, he can feel the familiar tug of decision-making as he dithers between a career in hospitality and journalism. He has finished two years in a course in hospitality but increasingly feels himself to be a misfit for a job in this area. He now plans to return to Canada and take up a course in journalism. Isn't this the familiar teething trouble we all have when we are young, the pebble in our shoe? Perhaps, but Al Ghussen is adamant about being happy. "I don't think you must wait until 75 to be happy. Happiness can be embraced at a much younger age, if you accept and enjoy what life gives you. I am a people's person. I chose hospitality because I love interacting with people. During my course work in college, I got the rare opportunity to interact with event managers, entertainers that gave me an exclusive peek into the world of showbiz. I consider myself fortunate to have had that exposure.
I love to be surrounded by family and friends and have worked out my own terms of happiness. Of course, I have my self-doubts and accept that in today's world where we are spoilt for choice, a 19-year-old does face some challenging times. However, I refuse to be consumed by the conflicting issues that flood my mind sometimes. I know I will eventually make some life-changing decisions, perhaps give up my hospitality career and move to Canada to study journalism, but I do not let this issue distract me from being happy."
If determination to always have a happy state of mind is Al Ghussen's real drive, hard work and a sense of well-being are the mainstays of Deselina Yanova's well-rounded life. Yanova, a Bulgarian national, feels that being happy is an inherent trait of all Bulgarians. "In my country when communism ended in 1989, people had to struggle to make ends meet. Until then, the state had provided everything. They just had to struggle to get everything and so most of us had a spartan upbringing. We have always been happy with whatever we had and to us the smaller pleasures of life - meeting loved ones, sharing our largesse with other members of the extended family, a get-together with cousins and family - meant a great deal as it gave us an occasion to laugh away the blues."
Yanova feels people are chiefly unhappy because of too many expectations that often lead to disappointments. "When I was a young girl, I was enrolled in a sports school as I was a good swimmer. I hardly had any time to play or climb trees or have fun like other children since we had a tough schedule from 7am to 8pm. It left me with no time for leisure. But I was still happy because I did not have any other expectations from life. I had known nothing else, hence had no point for comparison," she adds thoughtfully.
Living one day at a time
Yanova decided to give up her regimented life and moved to Dubai in search of more fulfilment. She got a job in an international design company and worked for five years. Once again, when the familiar bug to be the architect of her own happiness bit her, she looked within herself to discover what other career could make her happy. "I had no training as a beautician. But I loved the chatty atmosphere of a beauty salon. I was good with make-up and I decided to get into that field. Since I required some kind of training to gain a trade licence for that business, I trained as a make-up artist and upon completion opened my own beauty business," she says.
Yanova feels she is definitely far more happier now than she was as a teenager and the emotion has to do more with a sense of well-being rather than a material achievement. "If my clients, family and friends are happy, I feel happy. I do not plan too much into the future.
I live one day at a time. My family is not here and now I am at that stage in life, where I have found a partner and am planning to get married later this year. I agree with the study that happiness is an emotion that grows from a little seed to a big plant as you mature. When I was young around 10 to 16, my life was pretty plain. I studied hard and that was all. Now that I am older, I am more sure of who I am and what I want to do with my life. I have met so many people, met the person I want to marry and am looking forward to growing older and happier."
Married for 57 years - and still going strong
In their mid seventies, bubbling with positivity, contentment and happiness, Graham and Mary Downend are the poster couple proving the veracity of this study. The couple from a quiet village in Derbyshire, UK, were on their annual visit to Dubai to see their daughter Suzy and her family and simply stole my heart with their absolute state of happiness. Mary, 75, and Graham, 74, have been married for 57 years.
They feel that happiness is about being content and having enough money to afford the basics of life. Mary says one of the most important aspects of being happy is having each other and counting the many blessings life has heaped on them. "In our times when we met each other, we just wanted to be with each other. We had no doubts. Nowadays, the goal posts have shifted a bit and people stress themselves over silly doubts.
The Downends take pride in the achievements of their two daughters, Suzy and Jane, and feel they can cope with anything in life as long as they are together.
"It's harder for younger people these days (to be happy)," remarks Mary, who believes that her companionship with her husband is the key to their happiness.
"We talk a lot to each other and when we don't we almost know what the other is thinking," says Graham with a twinkle in his eye. He adds that they have achieved their personal fulfilment because: "we do not keep any secrets from each other. You never finish learning about life and together we are learning so much each day."
It is not as though the Downends have had no brush with unhappiness. When Graham turned 58, he had to face redundancy in a business he had poured his sweat to build.
"It was hard," recalls Mary. "I had one of my girls in school, the money was not enough to cover our expenses. Graham's mother lived with us and she was really unwell. We scrimped, we saved, we had to spend days without any prospect of money. But we had each other and went for long walks discussing everything there was to talk about our survival. We were confident that we would get over the crisis eventually."
Now the two share a very happy time.
